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FEATURE:NOT SINCE the Jolly Roger fluttered from masts and Blackbeard terrorised the Caribbean have pirates been causing as much trouble as they have this year. But to judge from the headlines, it is not the Somali bandits hijacking cargo and oil-laden ships off the Horn of Africa who pose the greatest threat to 21st-century commerce. That comes from a different type of pirate altogether, one hailing from that most orderly of societies, Sweden, writes DAVIN O’DWYER

The Pirate Bay site has made plenty of enemies among music labels, film studios, book publishers and games developers, who have seen their bottom lines take a nosedive as their traditional business models have been rendered obsolescent by the spread of filesharing. In a Swedish court in February this year, the founders of the Pirate Bay site were convicted of copyright infringement.